E-book Cover Design – Counting the Cost

Why bother with professional e-book design?

Typically, an ebook price will be less than the printed version, but there are mixed cost issues involved in producing an ebook that will need careful consideration.

Some Pros:

You don’t have to hold stock physically in a warehouse, or print-on-demand – which will save money

You can have an ebook cover in digital format produced before the actual product is completed – it won’t cost more to do this and you can begin marketing your book early.

Ebook covers can be produced both in flat artwork and in 3D artwork, making your virtual product look attractive on marketing materials without the need for a completed printed version first, or the services of a professional photographer.

Multiple copies of the cover artwork can be distributed at no extra cost electronically and in a variety of formats to suit the recipient.

The major ebook platforms and producers such as Amazon require an electronic version of your artwork to display on their website for selling.

If you have the artwork for your printed version of your book, it can be very cheap to convert that to 3D artwork for marketing and ebook purposes.

You could try creating an e-book yourself or using a template if you are on a tight budget. But this is not recommended as it could end up costing you more in lost sales

Possible Cons

Developing an e-book version of a book can be quite expensive depending on what you want. There are many considerations including how much is already available digitally and in what format and how complicated / interactive you want the e-book to be. At it’s cheapest you can settle for a straight conversion of your printed book to digital format – the same can be true for the cover design.

If you only produce an ebook cover of your book first knowing that you will be printing it too, it will quite likely cost you more to get artwork for a printed book cover version later (but the ability to start marketing your book earlier if you have it in electronic format may offset this, or if you want a different cover design for your ebook version to your printed version to accommodate the different platforms and formats).

Trying to create an ebook cover (or book cover) yourself could end up being more expensive and costly than investing in a designer for your book cover

I’m sure there are many more pros and cons regarding the balance between how much to spend on the cover of your book and the value extra money spent will bring – feel free to add your suggestions by commenting at the end of this post.

Overall, though, a poor cover will make a significant impact on how customers will perceive your book – no matter how good the content might be especially if they have no knowledge of the author or the content beforehand. In a market where you are competing with so many others, can you afford not to count the cost of the cover of your book?